Sparrow in the Wind

by S. Rose

  HALLOWEEN NIGHT FELL on a Friday, which meant we could stay out longer, stay up later, and eat more candy. Mom planned to drive me and Sparrow to town, so we could trick o’ treat in the neighborhoods like I used to do in Racine. Last year, Sparrow had gone to a children’s party at the reservation, but she’d never been door to door through the neighborhoods.

  I had been contemplating, planning, and assembling my costume for weeks. I convinced Mom that no one would think worse of us if we went to Second Hand Rose to hunt for costume material—lots of kids did that. I decided to be a witch, and finally settled on a long black sequined dress and a balding black mink cape that smelled faintly of damp dog. The dress was tattered at the hem and missing half its sequins, so it only cost a dollar. The lady at the checkout counter took a whiff of the cape and said I could have it for free. I topped it off with a pointy paper witch hat from the Five and Dime.

  Sparrow looked beautiful in a traditional Ojibwe beaded dress with feathers in her hair. Most of the other girls in our class had selected discarded bridesmaid dresses or castoff prom gowns and went out as a fairy princess or Cinderella at the ball, seizing the opportunity to look glamorous. I took a different approach, covering my entire face in green Halloween makeup to look like the wickedwitch of the west, even drawing a wart on my nose with Mom’s eyeliner. For a finishing touch, I combed my hair loose and used her hairspray to make it stick out all wild and frizzy. Mom laughed and said, “We’re gonna have one heck of a time shampooing out all that hairspray.”

  At five o’clock, she served us a mac and cheese supper while we waited for Dad—and the car. Me and Sparrow sat at the table laughing at everything and anything. I managed to get orange cheese sauce on my chin and green makeup in the elbow macaroni.

  At five thirty-five, we were standing by the window waiting for Dad to drive up. He knew we needed the car to go trick o’ treat in town, and he should’ve been home by now.

  “Aw, Mom . . . we’re gonna miss out,” I said dejectedly. “Everyone says you gotta go early to the ritzy houses on First Street. That’s where you get the best stuff. Can’t you borrow Grandpa’s truck?” I asked desperately, regretting my behavior in the hallway just before my birthday. I still hadn’t figured out the skimpy two dollar gift, although it was good for a candy apple and a couple games of ring toss at the county fair. Neither of us ever mentioned the incident.

  “Oh, I’d hate to have to do that,” she said with a groan. “Just a few more minutes,” she added. We waited a few and then some.

  “It’s after six. I guess I’d better ask, but don’t get your hopes too high,” she cautioned.

  “Grandpa Gorski could take us to town,” Sparrow suggested. “He probably won’t mind.”

  “What if he’s busy or has plans?”

  “He never goes out, not at night, anyway. He just sits by the stove and stokes it, now that it’s cold. He stays up half the night and keeps it going. It’s kinda nice, not to wake up frozen,” she mused.

  “I’ll ask Grandpa Parsons for his truck,” Mom said. “If he says no, I’ll ask if he can at least drive us down the road to Anna’s house.”

  After some grumbling, Grandpa Parsons took us over to the Schimschack’s. He left the engine running while we dashed inside and begged for a ride to town. I got to run back out and wave him off; Mr. Gorski was more than happy to help.

  For some reason, the aloof old man had taken a shine to my mother. He hardly ever had a smile for anyone, but as soon as she came in, he stood up from his chair by the stove and grinned, displaying a set of long yellow teeth with a couple bottom ones missing. When she asked for a ride, he nodded his head obligingly and grabbed his hat and coat from a wooden peg. Anna quickly explained in Polish the concept of trick o’ treat, so he’d know what he was in for. As he buttoned his coat, he nodded his head vigorously on his wiry thin neck. “Okay, okay. That good. Very nice. We go now.”

  I was happy to be back in the old Woody; it didn’t look half bad in the dark. Piotr Gorski must’ve had lead in his shoe ’cause he made short work of the drive into town. Sparrow and I whooped with delight as he barreled down Highway 2, careening around the bends in the road. Mom sat up front with her eyes wide, gripping the edge of her seat.

  When we came into town my mother spoke up. “Mr. Gorski, we’ve got to slow down.” She put her palms up in the universal gesture of slow down. “Children . . . kids in the streets.” She pointed ahead at the cluster of trick o’ treaters running across Fourth Avenue. They were easy to spot because one was a ghost in a white sheet.

  “Nice, very nice.” He nodded, seeming to compliment their costumes.

  “Slow,” my mother insisted, this time stepping on an invisible brake.

  “Oh, okay,” he said, slowing down.

  As planned, we headed for First Street to go for the best goodies. Then Mom and Mr. Gorski sat in the car with the heater blasting; it was a clear starry night, and the temperature had dropped to below freezing. We ran from house to house, determined to make up for a late start and get a decent haul of candy. My goal was to fill the hollow plastic pumpkin that I’d had since third grade. Mom had loaned Sparrow a straw beach bag.

  “That’s Amanda Richard’s house,” I told Sparrow, pointing to a stately three-story home. There was a decorative scarecrow under a pole lamp on the front lawn. The double doors were closed against the cold, but the porch lights were lit in welcome. Each side of the cement front staircase sported an enormous carved jack-o’-lantern with candle flames dancing in their empty triangular eyeholes.

  “How do ya know . . . you been there?”

  “No, but the sign says Theodore Richards, M.D.,” I said, pointing to the brass plaque under a spotlight between two manicured shrubs. “I think he practices out of his house.”

  “Guess we should skip it then,” she suggested.

  “Bet they have good stuff, though. And Amanda’s probably not home . . . she’ll be out trick o’ treating.”

  “Her folks probably won’t even recognize you with that green face.”

  “Hah. Let’s go,” I said.

  “Trick o’ treat,” we chorused as one door opened wide. A stunning bride in full regalia with a long white veil stood backlit in the entryway.

  “Cassandra? Is that you?” Amanda asked, scrutinizing my green face.

  “Uh, happy Halloween,” I said, thoroughly embarrassed. “How did you recognize me?”

  “The hair,” she pointed, as if it always looked that way.

  “Oh. That’s a beautiful costume,” I offered.

  “Yes, isn’t it? My mother bought me a real wedding gown—only worn once by the bride. She altered it to fit.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Did you already go trick o’ treating?”

  “Oh, no . . . I didn’t want to get my dress dirty. Besides, I don’t need any candy. We have the best treats in town,” she said seriously, looking down her nose.

  I swallowed a snigger as I stood shivering on her front steps, holding out my plastic pumpkin like a beggar. From a platter heaped with offerings, Amanda Jane selected two boxes of Cracker Jacks—the big box with the prize inside, not a scaled down snack size—and two twelve ounce Hershey bars, then unceremoniously dropped them into our containers like she was feeding animals at the zoo.

  “Thank you,” I said, then elbowed Sparrow.

  “Thanks a bunch,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” Amanda replied, then shut the door.

  We held it together until we were back on the sidewalk, then burst out in raucous laughter. “I know I’m beautiful,” I mocked, tossing my messy hair. The irony of my ugly green face made it all the more comical.

  Sparrow and I were the only kids around with a private chase-car. Grandpa Gorski parked by the curb at the end of each street and cruised along behind us as we crossed to the next. When we came to a street where the house lights had been turned off, signaling that they were out of candy, we hopped into the warm car, and he drove us to a more promisi
ng location. Sparrow gave him her Cracker Jacks, and he snacked contentedly while my mother ate a Hershey bar.

  After an hour and a half, my feet were getting cold, but my pumpkin was only three-quarters full of loot. Mom insisted that we should call it a night. “It was so kind of Mr. Gorski to go to all this trouble,” she said. “We don’t want to keep him out too long.” It was a little disappointing, but we didn’t complain.

  Mr. Gorski knew the drill and drove carefully through the neighborhoods, but took off like a stock car racer when we hit Highway 2. I actually saw Mom’s head snap back before she had a chance to brace herself. Nobody wore seat belts; the Woody didn’t even have seat belts. I was flung across Sparrow’s lap when we made a sharp left turn, and my plastic pumpkin rolled off the seat. We scrambled down and groped in the dark to collect the spilled candy, laughing ourselves silly.

  Our mirth was cut short when we rolled up to Parsons’ Lodge; the Bel Air was nowhere in sight. My first clue that something was wrong was the look on Mom’s face. She hurriedly bade her final goodnight to Mr. Gorski, her eyes nervously scanning the empty driveway as if maybe next time she looked, the car might magically materialize. After they drove off, my mother stood for a moment in the dark, looking at Grandpa Parsons’ house with silent dread, as if she’d rather go anywhere but back inside. I felt as if a plug had been pulled, and my Halloween spirit was circling the drain.

  31

  “GEORGE. THANK GOD you’re home,” Mom cried as he came through the kitchen door surrounded by a blast of cold air. It was half-past midnight. I’d gone to bed but couldn’t sleep, so she let me sit up and wait with her.

  “I’ve been so worried . . . Where on earth have you been? . . . I didn’t hear the car pull up . . . Why aren’t you wearing your overcoat?” Her sentences poured forth like patrons from a burning theater but came to a screeching halt as she took a good hard look at her husband.

  His suit was disheveled and stained with dirt at the knees as if he’d fallen; he clutched his Sunday hat like a crumpled paper bag. He was obviously drunk, but it wasn’t only the ashen complexion and bloodshot eyes that frightened me. I hardly recognized my father’s face. It was somehow transformed as if he wore a rubber Halloween mask. Each labored breath came through his half-open mouth, oddly contorted in a grimace. Then I saw that his forehead had a horizontal red welt, already coloring up.

  “Daddy, what happened?” I rushed over to take his hand and guide him to a chair, while my mother stood back in angry silence. As soon as I touched his ice-cold flesh, he flung my hand away as if bothered by some pest. He didn’t even look at me. Dread curdled in my belly and rose to my throat like vomit. My father staggered silently to the living room, then flopped face down on the couch.

  He didn’t move until noonday next. At my mother’s urging, he managed to sit up and call a tow truck to pull the Bel Air out of a ditch, about four miles down Highway 2. Thankfully, it was undamaged, just stuck in the mud. He’d banged his head hard on the steering wheel when the car plowed into the ditch, and the red welt had turned purple. Dad lost his overcoat, too—didn’t know where. It was brand new, as was the suit, from a men’s clothing store in Duluth. Mom backtracked from home to the Snowshoe Lounge, where my father spent the previous evening. She hoped to find it dropped somewhere along the way. Having no luck, she swallowed her pride and went inside to inquire; the man at the bar said that no one had turned in a lost coat.

  AT MY MOTHER’S insistence, I kept my father’s Halloween escapade a secret for nearly two weeks. I wasn’t supposed to tell Sparrow, and I was forbidden to mention it in my letters to Tante Gudy. I’d already been forced to lie to her about my birthday party; Mom made me write that it came off “just fine.” I couldn’t stand it any longer. I needed to tell my friend how bad things were at home because it looked like I might be leaving Blackstone before the year was out.

  We bundled up and went on a long walk so no one could overhear as I aired the family laundry. I decided it was my right—it was my laundry too.

  “I think it’s partly the darkness,” Sparrow said. “November is the darkest month . . . it gets to a lot of people. Grandpa Gorski’s been acting pretty weird these days,” she sympathized.

  “Does he drink, too?”

  “All men drink,” she said with an air of authority. “Grandpa keeps a flask and toots all day long. I’ve seen ’im passed out on the couch, but he never drives drunk off his ass. Lately, he hardly moves from that woodstove, ’cept when he’s out chopping wood . . . or in the outhouse. He sleeps all afternoon and then sits up all night. Now he’s started talking to himself. It was mumbling at first. I’d hear him at night when he thought I was asleep. Lately, he’s been talking in broad daylight. It’s like he’s having a conversation; sometimes he don’t even notice that I’m standing right there.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “It’s all in Polish. I asked my ma, but she says she can’t understand him. I think she knows, but won’t say. He sits on his chair beside a big pile of stove wood. Instead of stoking it so’s it’ll burn for a while, he feeds it one or two pieces at a time. Sometimes he keeps the door open and just stares at the flames. Creepy,” she concluded.

  “Creepy,” I agreed. “But my father has bigger problems than the winter darkness.”

  “Hear any news yet?” she asked.

  “They stopped talking to me about it. Mom says I should focus on school. When Dad wants to talk in private, he tells me to take my paints and go work in the chalet, ’cause it might as well get some use.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “I’m learning to mix colors. You’re supposed to start by painting a bowl of fruit. It seems boring. I’d rather look out the window and paint the river . . . the trees. Have you heard anything from the Indian side?”

  “I’d have told ya if I did. When I’m with Pa, they don’t say a word about it. I know they talk, though, ’cause I can make ’em stop pretty quick by walking into the office. What do you think will happen if—?”

  “If the Stony River Band takes back the land, and we can’t make a living from Parsons’ Lodge?” I finished her question. “We’ll go back to Racine and live with my aunt. Mom’s already talked about it. That’s why I wanted you to know what a mess we’re in.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  “I don’t know anymore. When I got here, all I wanted to do was go home. But now I’d miss the river and the woods . . . the quiet. Most of all, I’d miss you.”

  “I’d miss you too,” she admitted.

  “Of course, it would be great to be with Aunt Gudrun again . . . and Kitty. But it doesn’t really matter what I want. Didn’t matter when we left and it doesn’t matter now. I’ll tell you one thing, though. I can’t wait to grow up! I never felt that way before. I mean, I daydreamed about it . . . how many kids I’d have . . . what kind of house. But I wasn’t in any hurry. I feel like that little sparrow, getting blown around. My father is the wind. It’s all I can do to keep up. When we get to be adults, life will be so much easier—we can do whatever we want.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” she said.

  “Of course we can.”

  “Did your mother wanna move to Blackstone and run a lodge?”

  “Uh . . . well, she said she did. But I think she only wanted to please my father. I know she regrets it now.”

  “My ma didn’t want to be left in a shack with a sick baby, but that’s just what Lester did to her. And I know she wished my pa would’ve married her. Still does, though she don’t come out and say so.”

  “You’re right. Argh.” I stomped my foot for emphasis. “Seems like us girls never get to do what we want.”

  “Seems that way . . . but the men don’t always get what they want, neither.”

  I looked at her skeptically.

  “When my mother was young,” she went on, “the Germans invaded Poland. They lined up the men from her town and shot ’em in droves—not only Jews, but Polish Christians. T
hey put loads of Polish people into those concentration camps and most of them died there. My ma ended up in one of those camps. So did Grandpa Gorski.”

  I was stunned. “That’s horrible. My father liberated people from a concentration camp when he was a soldier, stationed over in Germany. He didn’t say much about it, but I could tell something really bad happened there. I never would’ve guessed about your mother—I thought they only put Jews in those camps. Did she tell you what it was like?”

  “She said it was like the gates of hell were thrown open and Satan’s armies took over the earth. People were dying every day. My ma had a whole family. Her grandmother was living, and she had a mother, a sister, and two brothers. The Germans killed her grandma straight off. She saw her ma and sister die in the camp, but the men were separated from the women, so she didn’t know if any of them survived until after it was over. Only her father made it. He was taken to a death camp—I think it was called Belzec—but they put him to work instead of killing him. Ma suspected that Grandpa Gorski had it a little easier; the Germans gave some Polish prisoners special jobs that came with extra rations, but Grandpa never really told her what happened. He don’t talk about it . . . hardly talks, period. Anyway, Ma got the chance to immigrate to America as a refugee, but her father wouldn’t leave Poland until he’d found out what happened to his sons. He hoped they were still alive somewhere . . . spent years searching all over Europe, even went to Russia—anywhere Polish refugees might have gone. Finally gave them up for dead.”

  “How did the prisoners die, exactly?”

  “Ma said she and her sister were starved and frozen and forced to work long hours. Her mother died the first month in, but somehow, they hung on ’til the end. It was the Russians who set them free, only . . . her sister didn’t make it through the day.”

  “Aw. What happened?”

  “One of the soldiers gave them a loaf of fresh black bread. Ma said it made her feel sick after a few bites, even though she was starving—it was too rich ’cause they were used to eating stale bread. Her sister managed to eat most of the loaf, and I guess her stomach just couldn’t handle it—I think it burst or something. She wasn’t the only one to die that way. My ma still cries about Lisa sometimes . . . says over and over how she should’ve stopped her. She was only sixteen.”